vi, 896 pages : 26 cm

Synopsis: This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times. The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras--figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book. Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author's life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative works, they highlight disjuncture's as well as continuities in utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century. Witty and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the questions it poses, the Manuels' anatomy of utopia is an adventure in ideas

Includes bibliographical references (pages 869-875) and index

Introduction: The utopian propensity -- Part 1: Ancient and medieval wellsprings -- 1: Paradise and the millennium -- 2: Golden age of Kronos -- 3: Great transmission -- Part 2: Birth Of Utopia -- 4: Passion of Thomas More -- 5: Citta felice for architects and philosophers -- 6: Heaven on earth for the common man -- Part 3: Flowering And Death Of The Christian Utopia -- 7: Pansophia: a dream of science -- 8: Bruno, the magus of Nola -- 9: Bacon, the trumpeter of New Atlantis -- 10: Campanella's city of the sun -- 11: Andreae, pastor of Christianopolis -- 12: Comenius and his disciples -- 13: Topsy-turvy in the English Civil War -- 14: Sun King and his enemies -- 15: Leibniz: the swan song of the Christian republic -- Part 4: Eupsychias Of The Enlightenment -- 16: Philosophes's dilemma -- Monde ideal of Jean-Jacques -- Freedom from the wheel -- 19: Turgot on the future of the mind -- 20. Condorcet: progression to Elysium -- 21: Kant: beyond animality -- Part 5: Revolutionary Diptych -- 22: New faces of love -- 23: Equality or death -- Part 6: Union Of Labor And Love -- 24: Battle of the systems -- 25: Saint-Simon: the pear is ripe -- 26: Children of Saint-Simon: the triumph of love -- 27: Fourier: the burgeoning of instinct -- Owen's new moral world -- Part 7: Marx And Counter-Marx -- 29: Marx and Engels in the landscape of utopia -- 30: Comte, high priest of the Positivist Church -- 31: Anarchy and the heroic proletariat -- Part 8: Twilight Of Utopia -- 32: Utopia Victoriana -- 33: Darwinism, the ambiguous intruder -- 34: Freudo-Marxism, a hybrid for the times -- Epilogue: Utopian prospect -- Notes -- Selected bibliography -- Index

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